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CRUSADE is a women's development
programme covering 100 villages just north of Chennai in Tamil Nadu.
Over 3 years, 4000 more women will join self-help groups, begin savings
schemes and participate in training on health, literacy, self-employment
and panchayati raj (village councils).
Jothi
Ramalingam founded CRUSADE (Centre for Rural Systems and Development)
in 1991 to work with poor and marginalized women in his native area, Minjur,
about 40 km north of Chennai. Later the Tamil Nadu Women's Development
Corporation asked CRUSADE to take on part of neighbouring Sholavaram community
development block. It now works with a total population of about 200,000,
one third of whom are from marginalized dalit (untouchable, scheduled
caste) communities, in 60 panchayats.
Vision
and Mission
CRUSADE's vision is to create a just order through non-violent means by
providing equality of opportunity to all. To this end, poor and marginalized
women are organised into self-sustaining viable self-help groups (SHGs).
Strengthening these people's organisations through capacity building for
sustainability and linking all development activities is CRUSADE's mission.
Strategy
Women's self-help
groups are formed around the theme of savings and credit. The 12-20 women
in each group:
- elect their own
leaders (the group leader is known as an animator),
- meet regularly,
- save an agreed
amount and pay a membership fee on a weekly or monthly basis
- lend the pooled
amount to members at an interest rate agreed by the group
- open a bank account
to keep their surplus money
- and keep their
own records on meetings and financial transactions
Once
a new group has stabilised, CRUSADE trains its members in group management
and begins to link the group to its other activities, credit for income
generation, housing, literacy, health awareness, sanitation and local
democracy. The SHGs are federated at panchayat, cluster and block level
to create a self-sustaining institutional structure.
Changing
Society
CRUSADE's SHGs are gradually moving into campaigning for social change.
For example, CRUSADE trains all SHG members in the roles and responsibilities
of the panchayats to promote awareness of the potential for change through
involvement in local democracy, the panchayat system. In 2001, 23 SHG
members, half of those who stood for election to the panchayats were successful.
CRUSADE has also begun to tackle social issues. The SHG members have identified
domestic violence, often spurred by excessive alcohol consumption, as
their main problem. CRUSADE is now working with them to find ways of closing
the illegal alcohol stills in the villages and to create a climate in
which drinking and domestic violence are unacceptable. Child marriage
is another issue that the women have elected to tackle.
Staff
CRUSADE's key staff are the women village level workers, Cluster Coordinators,
each of whom looks after 20-25 SHGs in a contiguous area. These women
are drawn from the communities they work with and the majority of them
were initially SHG members. They therefore have an unrivalled knowledge
of the area and the issues that SHG members face. These workers are supported
by Programme Associates who work on literacy, income generation programmes,
women's development and health
Crusade's
Website

Case
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Articles
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